saturday, july 21

we are all attached to wires that give us power and direction, like trolley cables, only ours are invisible and threaded straight through our hearts. we move along our wires like beads on a string pushed by toddler fingers: sometimes too fast; sometimes stuck for no apparent reason; sometimes crashing headlong into each other; sometimes lying quiet and neglected. in some spots the wires are coated in poison, or tiny sharp barbs, or pure sticky photons, or molten lead, or spun sugar, and we feel them without knowing why.
17:41 ++

friday, july 20

this test thinks I'm a freak. (link via another freak.)

Need to be unique: 86%
Need to NOT conform: 77%
Willingness to express dissent: 50%
Overall: 77%

have internet personality tests always been this stupid or am I just getting more picky? if I may revise those labels a little:

need to be unique: 86%
willingness to express noncomformist tendencies: 77%
ability to let need for expression take precedence over introversion: 50%

(I've left the numbers alone because if I were to decide them for myself it would sort of defeat the purpose of a test in the first place, which is more entertainment than real analysis anyway -- besides, I have no idea what whole they're supposed to be percentages of.)

I do, indeed, have a "need" to be unique, I suppose the same way I need to listen to music -- it's not that I'd die without it, the way I would without oxygen, but I would be missing a nontrivial aspect of my life. I wonder, though, how separable the need is from the trait itself. I'm not saying I'm the most unusual person around; I know I'm not (and I'm glad I'm not). but I am reasonably confident that my perspective on the world and some of the ways in which I relate to it are unique. this seem like more of a symbiotic relationship than a chicken-and-egg one: I need to be who I am; I'm not who I am because I need to be this way, nor did the need arise only after the trait developed.

on the other hand, I think the need to be nonconformist actually is somewhat separate from nonconformity, because it's a behavior rather than an intrinsic aspect of personality. I would be lying if I said I don't care at all whether people percieve me as being conventional or not, but in the grand scheme that plays a very small role in how I conduct myself. I have certainly never done something just to go against convention, and I think (for my own purposes, in the interest of being nonjudgmental) refusing to do something because it is too conformist is just as ridiculous as doing something because it's popular. even when you're a black sheep you're at the mercy of the shepherd, because you have to avoid the rest of the flock.

and finally, I do believe that I am actually more willing to express dissent than I am to express agreement, at least when I'm in a situation where self-expression involves some significant effort on my part. all the questions about how likely I would be to challenge an authority figure failed to take into account how likely I would be to express agreement in the presence of an authority figure, or in the presence of anyone save my well-established friends. I do participate in class discussions, but not because it's easy for me. and I usually feel that dissenting and unpopular (note: not attacking) opinions are more valuable and conducive to thought-provoking discussion than agreeable ones are. that's true on many levels, from casual conversation to international politics.

then again, maybe I'm just too contrary to agree with any personality test, no matter what it's trying to tell me. freak.
12:29 ++

on my way to work I rode behind a guy who had his backpack strapped on upside-down with bungie cords that wrapped around his torso, the way you would lash something to the roof of a car. he also had tie-dyed socks that didn't match anything at all, not even each other.
10:31 ++

thursday, july 19

I just made the coolest thing ever! ever!!

okay, so hyperbole runs in my family (and in my species). but it is really, really cool. for the last month I've been working with individual images of emission at different wavelengths in taken by the hubble space telescope -- cleaning them, combining them into larger mosaics, blah, blah, blah -- but until today, I had never seen them all together, and never with colors.

all I did was make an rgb image -- it's not even real color. but I can see! everything! all the little swirls and loops and arcs and clouds, and the stars! I've been looking at pictures of things from outer space for ten years; just about all of them have been prettier and more polished than the one I made today, but still when it rendered for the first time I jumped up and shrieked because it looked so amazing.

I wonder if this would ever become mundane if I did it for the rest of my life. how do you protect the things you love from losing their magic through overexposure? do you just trust them? or do you somehow know that even though they won't always make your jaw drop, they'll still always be amazing?

I can't imagine a world that doesn't have something to take my breath away, whether it's astronomy or not. but I don't want to ever look at something -- a picture, a spectrum, even an h-r diagram -- and have that feeling of amazement be only a memory.
16:57 ++

... and so, after forty-five minutes, I finally tied the cherry stem in a knot with my tongue.

it might be weeks before I can speak normally. :P
13:48 ++

I think I've given up on the idea of getting the new computer running tonight, since two days in a row of staying up past three and going to work at nine can't be good for my productivity. but I did get every last zip disk stuffed with files, and now all that remains is the great email preservation.

hard drive excavation can be quite the lesson in self-humiliation. want to know why I couldn't download anything new for the last six months? crap like this. times a bajillion. I'm sure dicky barrett would be pleased.

tomorrow, tomorrow...
03:01 ++

wednesday, july 18

science seems like one of those things that shouldn't be driven by politics, but somehow it is anyway.

for those of you who for whatever reason don't know this, I'm working a research institution that's affiliated with both harvard university and the smithsonian (they're the ones who pay me). many of the scientists here have joint appointments; they're paid by the smithsonian to do research and by harvard to teach. most of the physical stuff here belongs either to the smithsonian or to nasa.

pure science is underfunded. whether or not this is what we should be spending money on is another argument altogether; the fact is that corners are constantly being cut to try and fit everything into the budget. I knew that.

I didn't know that the entire smithsonian institution is in financial trouble, although I probably should have been able to guess. there's a series of articles in this week's science about the institution and the controversy surrounding the policies of its newest secretary, lawrence small. he wants to "focus the institution's centers of excellence" and get rid of "the scientific activities that are determined to be outside our chosen areas of specialization." the problem is, no one is completely sure which areas he's talking about aside from non-research facilities. everyone is frustrated that this guy, the first nonacademic head of the smithsonian ever, is treating the institution like a corporation. when he came to have an open meeting here a few weeks ago, all the scientists were ready to get up in arms and take him to task for his questionable priorities.

the thing is, the center for astrophysics is one of those centers of excellence -- "one of the world's premier research facilities," if you believe science. and even we are suffering from the pressures of a tight budget. many of the computer systems are outdated; the submillimeter array construction on mauna kea has been repeatedely stalled and delayed; there's not enough money to hire new scientists or enough space to give them all a place to work. yesterday I got an all-center email from the current director (who is also getting people upset with his politics, but that's another story) that said he had authorized a "support the cfa" link on the front page of the website. it's a temporary solution, due for re-evaluation at the end of its trial term in six months. in his justification for the decision, the director said that "one of our key communication challenges is to overcome the perception that cfa has all the funding it needs," and that the point is just as much to raise awareness as it is to garner financial support.

still. the harvard-smithsonian center for astrophysics is soliciting donations, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

the cfa is one of the jewels in the smithsonian's crown, and it doesn't have enough money. that means the non-research institutions like, say, the national museums, are so far in the red they're practically bleeding to death.

I love astronomy. I really, really love it. still, if I were given the choice between funding big expensive telescope projects and keeping the national museums healthy and open and free to everyone, I'd pick the museums without a second thought. an institution that gets seventy percent of its funding from the federal government should be for everyone. period. instead it seems that the government is committed to supporting none of it; the smaller programs are floundering while the big ones are counting on charity to keep them afloat. and meanwhile we are building a ridiculous overgrown public relations toy, because it's much easier to go out and buy something shiny and new than it is to fix something that's started to fall apart. sometimes it just hurts to watch.
14:48 ++

tuesday, july 17

summer traditions, rabi-style.

climb a tree. I like to do it at night, in my pajamas, so that I have to rely on my memory and my fingertips to guide me, and the absence of light makes me hyper-aware of the way bark smells musty and alive at the same time. lying on a nice thick branch and listening to the leaves rustle is one of the nicest ways to spend a summer witching hour.

stay up all night. I have one of those forty-hour-a-week job thingies now, but one of these days I'm going to pull an all nighter anyway, because I love going out for a run just before the sun comes up, while the birds are busy serenading the world and the river is covered in morning mist. there's nothing quite like an adrenaline high when you're completely exhausted.

do something crazy. not stupid crazy, but good crazy. cliff diving. one night stands. whatever. last year I bought a domain name, which felt pretty crazy at the time. I also went skycoasting. this summer, bungie jumping. I can't wait. summer is for being a little bit not yourself, because a vacation from yourself can be one of the best kinds.

find a pen pal. there's something that feels very different about writing letters on paper with flawed handwriting and no delete button, different and messier and somehow better than email or telephone conversations. and the way it seems slightly old-fashioned reminds me of being a little kid, writing letters in rainbow ink to the friends I had left behind in new york city, and summer is also for being a little kid. I wrote a fifteen page letter a few days ago, with a purple sparkly pen, and I decorated it with circus stickers and margin-drawings; the contrast only made my words seem older. but still me.

eat flowers. purple clover is good, and so is honeysuckle. I like to lie in the grass at sunset, looking through the tops of weeds that are glowing with caught late-evening light, feeling fresh sweetness on my lips.

go to the movies. I don't like movies, generally, and I like the stereotypical summer movies even less. in cambridge, though, we have the kendall square theater which is always full of lovely indie films, and I love to go all by myself to a matinee, sit alone in the middle of a row to watch a movie that is all in another language, and come out at the end feeling disoriented and fuzzy-headed and full of sour candy, blinded by the unexpected brightness of daytime reflecting off the sidewalks.

watch the street performers. sometimes the magicians are so bad you can see the coins hiding in their palms, and sometimes the girls singing duets seem to think perfect fifths are the only way to harmonize. and then there's the man who can ride his unicycle around in a circle while he juggles flaming clubs without ever dropping a single one on the head of a nearby gaping toddler, and the boy who drums on dented kitchen pots and old milk crates, and always the incan pan fluters trying to find the right balance between native songs and wispy versions of rock and roll chart-toppers. it is the most amazing thing that some people are brave enough to make a living on a brick sidewalk stage where they are at the complete mercy of generous passersby. I love living with artists and humans.

read books. not sure what more can be said about this one. I love libraries and old favorites and new words and yum.

what are your summer traditions?
23:24 ++

simple summer traditions, from the new magazine real simple, whose name may or may not be an evil grammar mistake along the lines of "think different."

much, much more when I have time to stop working and write...
13:38 ++

monday, july 16

dear reader-people,

some things:

1) I owe a bunch of you email. soon, I promise. I have thirteen unanswered messages in my inbox and after I reply to those I can even start writing new ones. woohoo! (you must understand; this is a huge accomplishment for me. usually my inbox has over a hundred things that I meant to reply to but somehow never did, still waiting...)

2) I also owe a bunch of you (though not thirteen of you, fortunately) truckmail. that will also be coming soon, although not tonight. ;) but I didn't forget, cross my heart.

3) the blogathon is in less than two weeks! if you haven't seen it, check out my thon page, and just think about it. or think about sponsoring someone else, if you possibly can. I need to peruse the list one more time myself. I'm sure some new names and charities have been added.

4) for those of you who are still keeping track, or are otherwise curious, or whatever, I've procured twenty-three of those cds you told me to buy, and so far I haven't reached the point where I need to look for new copies. reviews...sometime. :)

5) my old computer is about ninety percent packed up (or permanently deleted), which means I have come to the really hard parts: bracing myself for the rest of the summer sans peripherals, software, and all the utilities and programs that come free with the college campus network connection. but I am still really excited, and I'm hoping to have the new baby up and running for good within a few days.

thanks for putting up with my scatteredness.

love and other catastrophes,
rabi
22:55 ++

to expand a little on that last entry:

I'm sure everyone who's made a habit of writing or even of paying attention to emotions has felt that words can be very, very silly. or worse, sometimes; the same word that was full and bright can suddenly become flat and pale and limp, as if one of its dimensions had been ripped away, leaving it incapable of filling the space the universe has reserved for it. and words are at their most malicious, I think, not when they are twisted into insults but when they fool you into thinking you need them.

for most of my life I've had people telling me I should be a writer (or perhaps just expecting that I would turn into one), especially myself. I took it semi-seriously in fits and spurts; for months I would go without writing a single thing except for my school assignments, and then I would spend hours with the computer (a 286 running dos) because writers were supposed to write something every day. (fortunately for my sense of artistic integrity, if not for my mother's saving box, most of the things I wrote were lost forever with the arrival of a computer that couldn't read five-and-a-quarter-inch floppies.)

for a while I worried that I would run out of things to write about before I had run into the words they deserved. the real problem, though, is that there's an (effectively) infinite number of things to write about, but the finite edges of english words can make it seem like everything's already been said, or that it's impossible to say them at all. as long as I'm alive I'll have something to write about, but no matter how many times I try to catch things in words I'll never get them quite right. so I will forever be just-enough-off that each new beam of sunlight will make me want to find the sounds that it describes, but I'll be close enough that I'll want to keep trying, deluded into believing that I will be able to write something perfect if I just feel it hard enough. but of course it doesn't work, and of course we end up writing in circles, retracing our steps with larger and larger feet, until the most lightweight of the silly words feels heavy and cold.

still. maybe the inadequacies of language are what make it so beautiful; if the right words were easy to find, maybe we would all stop looking.
12:08 ++

sunday, july 15

it's not at all disturbing, so I couldn't post it here, but I like this search request so much that I couldn't let it go unrecorded:

monologue - and all you can think is what the hell am i doing here reading these silly words.

oh, how many times have I thought that? only on my side it's a little bit different:

and all I can think is what the hell am I doing here writing these silly words?

perspective, sometimes you are cruel even more than you are wise.
15:02 ++

and here I am, at work, on a sunday.

I'm used to being a slacker and never getting enough of my own work done, but I'm very very good about fulfilling my obligations to other people. on friday, I just didn't get enough done, and as (un)luck would have it, the stsdas task that kept tripping me up is the last one in a rather long sequence. without it I really have no product, only intermediate steps and hundreds of pages of notes. also, it takes ten minutes every time I run it, which makes troubleshooting just a bit painful.

so I am here on a weekend, still trying to get it right. then again, a weekend spent with anxiously twisted insides isn't much of a weekend.

it's creepy. the stairwells are lit, but the hallways mostly aren't, and everything is bathed in dim red from exit signs and glowing vending machines, and there is just enough light that things look like shadows instead of casting them. I feel almost criminal being here, perhaps because the dark inspires me to walk as softly as possible, but mostly I think because I am completely alone in the building, and my bicycle is alone outside next to the empty parking lot.

but. the lock on the front door is really cool. I've never had occasion to use it before, since I've always come in during normal working hours even though sometimes I leave well after the autolocks are on. I was expecting to have to actually swipe my id card, but as soon as I brought it near the little security box, I was greenlighted and the door clicked open.

of course then I spent five minutes standing outside, opening the door and letting it close again, experimenting to see how far away I could hold my card before the lock would stop recognizing it (a few centimeters). fortunately no one was around to watch me, or I'd probably have more people than just myself to convince of my non-criminal nature.

still can't get this thing to work; I must be an idiot. but at least I'm a curious one.
13:16 ++